WAUSAU — Helen Vance planted two-foot-tall saplings from her father’s Marinette County farm when she and her husband built their Wausau home 23 years ago, and now one of those trees has moved downtown as part of the city’s holiday decor.

“My father, Lawrence Becker, would be very proud his tree was used for that purpose,” Vance said. “We’re really proud to see it standing downtown.”

City Forester Blaine Peterson helps erect four Christmas trees across the city every year — on The 400 Block, at City Hall, the Marathon County Courthouse and by the Associated Bank at Stewart and South First avenues.

Donors contact the city and staff members then are assigned to go out to remove the trees free of charge and decorate them. Occasionally, Peterson has to purchase a tree for $15 or so.

“We don’t always have a number of trees to pull from,” Peterson said. The city and county parks do not contain trees appropriate for Christmas use, he said.

Peterson said staff members began this year with The 400 Block tree and then the bank site, both of which are on the Holiday Parade route from Marathon Park to downtown, where the tree will be lighted. The parade is 6:30 p.m. Dec. 5.

The city won’t take just any evergreen.

“I don’t want to get it and say, ‘What a Charlie Brown thing,’” Peterson said. “I’m not a perfectionist, but the tree represents the city.”

One fall, he talked to a homeowner who wanted to donate a tree that had fallen on her garage during a storm and got the impression that it was more about a free removal than charity to the city.

“You have to be diplomatic,” Peterson said. “It might have been something they planted.”a

Vance’s tree, with its sentimental value, is slated for the corner of Stewart and South First Avenues. And Peterson accepted a white spruce for The 400 Block from longtime Wausau resident Angie Schmidt.

She decided two months ago to donate the tree and is doing it in memory of her husband, Orville Schmidt, who died in June.

“It is a very beautiful tree,” Schmidt said.

Vance said her balsam was getting too big for her to manage. Last year, she donated another planted at the same time. She cared for the trees over the two decades they spent in her yard, including trimming and hiring an arborist a few years ago to shape it.

“It has a little longer needle than the spruce,” Vance said, “so that makes it a little better Christmas tree.”

Nora G. Hertel can be reached at 715-845-0665. Find her on Twitter as @nghertel.